The Parishville Town Museum - Part 1

Parishville is a very small, scenic village to the southwest of me which straddles the St. Regis River. It has a lot of history and was once an industrial center with 14 mills on the St. Regis. I've driven by their museum many times and wanted to investigate, but it was only open two days per week, two months per year. So on its first day open, I paid a visit:

The museum was housed in a large, old mansion which once belonged to the richest family in town, owners of several of the mills:

Rocking chairs, spinning wheels:

An embroidered pillow: "Friendship, Love And Truth:"

A table covered with old books, many of them autograph books, and a stereoscope:

An upright grand piano:

And then I entered a small room filled with circus figures of amazing quality. I was puzzled until the historian explained that a town resident, Everett Frederick, had carved them all out of wood. It was his hobby and he loved the circus and its horses. He kept his beloved creations in boxes out in the barn. After his death, his family donated them to the museum and his great grandchildren have visited to see them:

Amazing creations, all hand carved from wood and trimmed with metal and leather:

I thought that the reins looked like plastic and the historian said no one had ever questioned that before. So he opened the case and took a look. Indeed, they were made of real leather:

Oddly, I didn't notice the monkey in the cage wagon until I was editing photos. I wondered if it too had been hand carved. I took another trip over, the next time the museum was open, to find out and the historian again investigated. The monkey turned out to be a rubber child's toy. He removed it and will replace it with a toy animal of a more appropriate size:

There was a town memorial quilt. But I had barely begun, so there was much more to see. I'll post Part 2 tomorrow: